12/22/2017

Keith's note: With government shut down issues and an evaporating calendar, it is unlikely that Rep. Bridenstine nomination to be NASA Administrator will come up in 2017. Right now the expected support for Rep. Bridenstine remains exactly where it...

12/22/2017

Keith's note: Fast forward to 28:45 for an interview with deaf student astronaut Julia Velasquez in ASL who is currently at HI-SEAS Mars analog habitat in Hawaii. In a previous life I worked as a professional Sign Language interpreter...

12/20/2017

Glowing Auras and 'Black Money': The Pentagon's Mysterious U.F.O. Program, New York Times "Contracts obtained by The Times show a congressional appropriation of just under $22 million beginning in late 2008 through 2011. The money was used for management of...

08/05/2017

TESS Has A Hubble Problem But NASA Will Launch It Anyway (Update) - NASA Watch

Cameras on NASA exoplanet spacecraft slightly out of focus, Space News "NASA confirmed July 26 that the focus of the four cameras on the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) spacecraft will drift when the spacecraft cools to operating temperatures after...

07/14/2017

NASA finally admits it doesn't have the funding to land humans on Mars, Ars Technica "Now, finally, the agency appears to have bended toward reality. During a propulsion meeting of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics on Wednesday, NASA's...

07/05/2017

NASA Provides Coverage of Vice President Pence's Visit to Kennedy Space Center "NASA will provide television, still image and social media coverage of Vice President Mike Pence's visit to the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Thursday, July 6."...

06/21/2017

Waiting for liftoff at the Spaceport, Santa Fe New Mexican "The concept of space tourism was all the rage when Spaceport America was pitched to New Mexico taxpayers a decade ago as a gateway for rich adventurers willing to pay...

06/12/2017

BETTII Balloon Mission Ends in Failure "At the conclusion of the mission Friday, June 9, NASA conducted an analysis of atmospheric conditions and a survey of the operational area as part of a safety analysis in preparation for flight termination....

05/23/2017

Acting NASA Administrator Lightfoot's Message on Fiscal Year 2018 Budget "While this budget no longer supports the formal Office of Education, NASA will continue to inspire the next generation through its missions and the many ways that our work excites...

05/11/2017

Keith's note: Sources report that a LOX dome for the SLS under construction was dropped and is damaged beyond repair. The accident also damaged some tooling. There are reportedly enough parts to build a new LOX dome but that...

05/02/2017

Science wins reprieve in US budget deal, Nature "The biggest winner is the National Institutes of Health (NIH), whose budget would rise by $2 billion compared to the 2016 level, for a total of $34 billion. The National Science Foundation...

04/27/2017

With Secret Airship, Sergey Brin Also Wants to Fly, Bloomberg "Larry Page has his flying cars. Sergey Brin shall have an airship. Brin, the Google co-founder, has secretly been building a massive airship inside of Hangar 2 at the NASA...

04/26/2017

Reopening the American Frontier: Reducing Regulatory Barriers and Expanding American Free Enterprise in Space (Live at 10:00 a.m. EDT) U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), chairman of the Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness, will convene a hearing titled "Reopening the...

04/24/2017

Marc's note: At 10:00 a.m. ET President Trump, Ivanka Trump and NASA Astronaut Kate Rubins will call the ISS from the White House to speak with Commander Peggy Whitson and Flight Engineer Jack Fischer of NASA. Will we hear...

04/21/2017

Flat NASA budgets pose risk to researchers, SpaceNews "The prospect of extended flat budgets for NASA has some scientists concerned that research funds could be raided to support other programs. In a presentation April 19 to a microgravity research colloquium...

04/19/2017

Breakthrough Initiatives Summit on Life in the Universe and Space Exploration "Breakthrough Initiatives today announced its second annual Breakthrough Discuss scientific conference, which will bring together leading astronomers, engineers, astrobiologists and astrophysicists to advance discussion su...

04/16/2017

"The Autonomous Space Agency Network (ASAN) launched a "protest in space" against President Trump this week in solidarity with the upcoming March for Science, by sending a weather balloon to space with a printed-out anti-Trump tweet attached to it."

04/15/2017

Congressman Jim Bridenstine Says He's Still In Running To Lead NASA, NewsOn6 "Oklahoma First District Congressman Jim Bridenstine says he is still in the running to be the new head of NASA. Bridenstine told News On 6 he was recently...

04/14/2017

NASAWatch's cover photo

04/14/2017

New Insights into Ocean Worlds Enceladus and Europa "Two veteran NASA missions are providing new details about icy, ocean-bearing moons of Jupiter and Saturn, further heightening the scientific interest of these and other "ocean worlds" in our solar system and...

02/28/2017

02/28/2017

Trump to Ask for Sharp Increases in Military Spending, Officials Say, NY Times "President Trump will instruct federal agencies on Monday to assemble a budget for the coming fiscal year that would include sharp increases in Defense Department spending; major...

02/28/2017

SpaceX To Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond The Moon Next Year, SpaceX "We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year. They have already...

02/27/2017

King for a Day, Wayne Hale "Many of my old friends and colleagues are asking me a question these days: "If you were NASA Administrator, what would you have the agency do?" I know what they want to hear: Moon,...

02/27/2017

NASA to Host News Conference on Discovery Beyond Our Solar System "NASA will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. EST Wednesday, Feb. 22, to present new findings on planets that orbit stars other than our sun, known as exoplanets....

02/16/2017

Acting NASA Administrator Lightfoot Memo: Agency Update - Feb. 15, 2017 "Related to that, I have asked Bill Gerstenmaier to initiate a study to assess the feasibility of adding a crew to Exploration Mission-1, the first integrated flight of SLS...

04/19/2016

Orbital ATK wants to unearth the dormant missiles and repurpose them to launch commercial satellites into orbit. Russia has released its Soviet-era ICBMs into the commercial market, the company argues, so the Pentagon should be allowed to sell its unused ICBMs as well. But to do that, Congress would have to ease a 20-year-old restriction that prohibits the sale of the missile motors for commercial use. And that has touched off a rancorous battle that has extended from the Pentagon to Capitol Hill, where Congress is scheduled to hold a hearing on the issue Tuesday."

Space companies feud over what to do with rockets in ICBM stockpile, Washington Post "Orbital ATK wants to unearth the dormant missiles and repurpose them to launch commercial satellites into orbit. Russia has released its Soviet-era ICBMs into the commercial...

05/09/2013

"NASA has awarded a contract to J.P. Donovan Construction Inc. of Rockledge, Fla., to modify the mobile launcher that will enable the agency's Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift rocket to send humans to an asteroid, Mars and other new destinations in the solar system. The work under this firm fixe...

05/09/2013

Keith's note:Have a look at the Aerospace Research Information Center in South Korea. Do a few searches and you will see all sorts of NTRS material is hosted there. This makes things much easier for the folks in North Korea to access, one would assume. It has been there while NTRS was offline.

04/25/2013

"Defense officials said that no final decisions have been made about furloughs for the department's 800,000 civilian employees. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told the House Armed Services Committee last week that "hopefully we won't have to" furlough employees. He added that the department hopes to…

04/12/2013

"NASA went on an unusual tweet-binge praising planetary science today, saying that the struggling division "thrives" and highlighting various missions mainly developed in better times. NASA made five tweets in a row about planetary science over the course of two hours. Maybe NASA feels bad for its P...

04/12/2013

"Obama proposed Wednesday spending nearly $35 million in his 2014 budget to refurbish a satellite, nicknamed GoreSat by critics, that's been sitting in storage after it was shelved in 2001, months after Bush took office. It cost about $100 million by then with NASA's internal auditors faulting its c...

04/12/2013

Keith's note: This is how the Twitter account @Camilla_SDO describes itself: "I am Camilla SDO, NASA SDO's Mission Mascot. I help with Education & Public Outreach and I train to fly to Space." This twitter account is actualy run by Romeo Durscher, a financial management analyst at Stanford. @Camilla...